To live will be an awfully big adventure. (On going home...)

It's possible to love two different lives. So many travelers, travel bloggers especially, love life on the road so much that they could never imagine going home, stopping, "settling down." And I know plenty of people in my normal life that would never dream of packing everything away to travel for a year or more. But then there are some of us who live somewhere in between. Who, while at home dream of where we will go next. Dream of our next vacation or career break. Who, while on the road, make copious amounts of wish lists every time West Elm updates their catalog.

Going to SPACE in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile.

I'm fascinated by the stars. Mostly, I suppose, because I'm a city girl and I don't get to see them that often. Chicago is filled with big building and lots of light. I'm lucky if I can see a handful at a time. So I was beyond excited when I read about SPACE — San Pedro de Atacama Celestial Explorations — in my guidebook. SPACE is the largest public observatory in Chile and every night they host tours. I booked an 11pm tour which had me whining beforehand because making plans for late at night makes me just want to curl up in bed and fall asleep.

Valle de Luna (Moon Valley) Tour in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

My Salar de Uyuni tour dropped me off in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. It's a small town near the border and while there isn't much to do in town, tours around the area abound. I spent an afternoon on the most popular tour: Valle de Luna, or Moon Valley. We made a few stops to check out the death valley landscape before heading into Valle de Luna and climbing to the top of the hill. The main draw is sunset. Not just watching the sun set behind a hill but turning around and watching the pink and purple and orange glows of the surrounding volcanoes.

Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni 3 Day Salt Flat Tour

Cooperative Mine Tour in Potosi, Bolivia

I wasn't exactly sure that I wanted to take a tour of the cooperative mines in Potosi, Bolivia. It's a working silver mine, meaning that going into the caves involves a voyeuristic view of a painstaking job. Tight, claustrophobia-inducing chambers, dirt and dust containing anything from silica to asbestos, wretched climbs. On one hand, it seemed interesting: a chance to see something in action that I would never see elsewhere. On another, kind of scary, dark, and dangerous.

Virgen de Guadalupe Parades in Sucre, Bolivia

I'd like to say that it was my impeccable travel skills that brought me to Sucre, Bolivia, just in time for their biggest festival of the year: Virgen de Guadalupe. But, who are we kidding? I had no idea it was going on until I checked into my hostel and the guy working there told me it was starting the next day.

Things to do in Samaipata, Bolivia

Samaipata is a little oasis in Bolivia. The town is about a 3-hour share trufi ride away from Santa Cruz. (Longer if, say, there's a "road block" protest. Then you might have to take a taxi to the start of the protest, walk 2 kilometers through cut down trees, piled up rocks, and buses, then catch a share trufi from there. Just sayin...) I honestly expected to have a quiet few days there, do little but relax in the the $20 a night b&b I splurged on, enjoy the view, enjoy having my own room for once. But I met an Italian man on my ride there and, in a rare moment lately of being social, I joined him for lunch when we got there. And then we did everything there was to do in Samaipata. As things go.

The Bolivian Amazon: The Madidi Jungle

It didn't matter if my eyes were open or closed. Everything looked the same either way. I had to trust that my guide was still in front of me. That if I lifted my arm, it would graze his back. Of course, he was there. If he had moved I would have heard him. The crunching of dead leaves below his boots. The snapping of twigs. That was exactly why we'd turned our flashlights off and were standing, still, in the darkness of the Amazon jungle.

On finding balance when traveling. (In La Paz, Bolivia.)

I have trouble concentrating on more than one thing at a time. It's not really in some ADHD way, but it's that I get so into something that it consumes me. I get my mind on something and I don't want to think about anything else, do anything else. It's all I can focus on. Sometimes it's work. Sometimes it's partying. Sometimes it's watching a series on Netflix in one sitting. It's hard to find a balance. To want to do more than one thing at a time. When I arrived to La Paz, Bolivia, I was struggling with that balance.

Bolivia: Copacabana and Lake Titicaca

I hadn’t planned on going to Bolivia. Proof in point that I should never try to make plans. I had thought I’d fall in love with Cusco and want to stay while I got some work done. But, after a couple of weeks, I grew tired and ready to move on. You can’t plan for the places that will capture you. So, I decided to head towards Bolivia and spent my first couple of nights in Copacabana, taking a tour of Lake Titicaca from the Bolivian side. A day tour isn’t much time to see anything. But as I keep pledging to never trek again I may not have seen much more if I had stayed overnight on one of the islands...

Sillustani

There isn't much to do in Puno, Peru other than await your trip to Lake Titicaca and run around getting the American dollars and the photocopies you need after deciding to head to Bolivia (because Americans have to pay $135 and provide copies of their passport at the border. No one else, mind you. Just Americans.) Sillustani is a pre-Inkan burial ground just outside of Puno and everyone offers a quick day trip there for around 30 soles (about $11). With an afternoon free I hopped on the tour with some others from my hostel.

Life List #120: See Machu Picchu.

I had written it there, I swore. "See Machu Picchu," was on my life list. I was sure I had added it at some point but, as I scrolled through the list on my phone, as I googled my web address and "Machu Picchu," it wasn't showing up. Had I imagined it?

Would you like fries with that? What to eat in Cusco, Peru.

I love fries. I really do. A good fry is heaven. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, a touch of salt. But in Peru they are always just greasy and limp. And they come with everything. Everything. I never thought I’d get sick of fries. But I also don’t need them twice a day...

Cusco, Admittedly.

What's your mule? (Trekking Peru's Colca Canyon)

This is what 4am looks like when you're at the bottom of a canyon that cuts off power for the night. It's what 4am looks like when your group, the "slow group," starts its ascent. Black. So black you can't even see a foot in front of you. But, if you look up, there will be stars. More stars than you've ever seen. So you turn off your flashlight, and stand, for a moment, staring upwards, wishing you knew more constellations, any constellations, before turning it back on and meeting your guide.

I've been here before. (On Arequipa, Peru. On not knowing what the hell I'm doing.)

This is Antigua. That's all I could think when I entered the main square in Arequipa, Peru. Both were surrounded by walkways of arched columns where touts would constantly hassle you to book a tour, eat at their restaurant, buy some sunglasses. Both were flanked by a giant church. Both centered around a park, a fountain, where women in traditional garb tried to get you to buy traditional souvenir, eat some ice cream, or, in Arequipa's case, take your photo with an alpaca. It was bigger than Antigua, but so eerily familiar that I often forgot where exactly I was.

Huacachina is a weird little outlet in southwestern Peru. The town, if you can even call it that, centers around a natural lake, and that is surrounded by giant dunes of sand. It's a vintage relic, really, one of those places you could imagine being filled with rich Peruvians on a weekend holiday back in the seventies. But this is 2014, and it's kind of run down, and it retains all that 70s charm, and local vacationers, while still there, have been outnumbered with bus-loads of tourists stopping to take photos before getting back on the bus, and backpackers there for one thing: sandboarding.

Welcome to Peru. And the start of a new identity crisis.

I want to move to New York. Or Portland. Or Austin. Or Seattle. Maybe. I thought about that as I sat under a sculpture of two giant lovers embraced in a kiss in Parque del Amor, "Love Park," in the Miraflores district of Lima, Peru. At least, I managed to think about it for about two minutes before a man asked me to take his picture and then started talking to me.

A walk in Gowanus with Amber.

I didn't know Amber until I showed up on her doorstep three years ago to crash on her air mattress in Brooklyn for a few nights. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and I was moving in again (this time upgraded to a pull out couch). In the three years in between, I've read every last word of her blog. Seriously, it's one of very few blogs I read cover to cover. She's always up to something interesting. Her photography is amazing. And she's incredibly honest, even when it's something difficult to write about.

Things to do in New York.

It was my sixth time in New York but the first time I stepped back and thought, time and time again, "I could live here." I could live in New York. I really think it had to do with the advent of the smartphone, allowing me to be anywhere in the city and figure out anywhere I wanted to go.

Life List #183: Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

The one touristy thing I had on my New York to-do list was to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. When Kristin said she'd never done it before either we decided to meet up one afternoon for the trek across the East River.

Brains.

Every time Molly Schuyler does something, I can count on at least five people sending me a link to it. Which probably says something about both my reputation and hers. There was that time she ate 363 chicken wings in 30 minutes.

Life List #206: Compete at the Nathan’s Famous July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest.

I was a celebrity. Being approached on the street for photos. Getting asked for an autograph at a bar. Receiving random high fives from the crowd. Being told by a mass of self-proclaimed groupies that they were rooting for me. For me. A self-proclaimed groupie myself.

Thank you to all my amazing fans!

I'm still recovering from my totally awesome last place finish at the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest. So, check back later for a full contest recap. But I just wanted to check in and say a big gigantic THANK YOU to everyone for your support. Seriously. I know some of the most amazing people who are always encouraging me to follow my dreams, no matter how weird they are. Thank you. Thank you everyone!

Three years. Back where it all began.

Three years ago today I boarded a one-way flight to New York to attend the July Fourth Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest and begin my 'round the world trip. At the time I thought, "There's no way I would ever want to travel for more than a year," and I'm pretty sure everyone else thought, "She's not going to make it three months." But things chance. People change.

My upcoming travel plans. And why they will go out the window.

Booking plane tickets makes me nervous. I can spend hours searching Kayak and Skyscanner for the perfect place, the perfect price, but, even if I find a great deal, can never bring myself to book. Even if I know that I have to be somewhere for something at a specific date and time I hem and haw over whether I should get there an extra day early or what time of day I should leave and arrive.

Life List #179: Go to the top of the John Hancock Tower.

Life List #55: Run a 5K. (With bacon...)

"How is the couch to 5K going?" a friend would ask me every week when we hung out, to which I'd reply, "I've got the couch part down." Ten weeks ago I signed up to run my first 5K and immediately downloaded one of those "couch to 5K" apps onto my pink iPhone. It was a nine week, three times a week, program that alternated reps of walking and jogging dictated by a very lovely sounding woman whispering directions in my headphones. "Let's jog," she'd say. "Brisk walk," she'd say.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Hi, I'm Val. I spent most of my 20s in a standstill, unable to pick which path in life I wanted to take. I wanted the nomadic life of a traveler but also wanted the husband, the condo, and the kitten named Bacon. Unable to decide which life I wanted more, I did nothing. When I turned 30 I’d had enough of putting my life on hold and decided to start “choosing my figs.” So, I quit my job, bought a one-way ticket to Europe, and have been traveling the world ever since. Learn more.

Where have I been? Where haven't I been?

My life list is an incomplete list of 1,000 things I want to do in my life.
What have I checked off? What do you want to check off?